World Book Day or World Book and Copyright Day (also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days) is an annual event held on April 23rd. The first time it was celebrated was back in April of 1995. The event was organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to promote reading, publishing and copyright. In the United Kingdom (UK), the day is recognized on the first Thursday in March, and Sweden celebrates the event on April 12th.

In 1995 UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on April 23rd, as that date is also the anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, the deaths of Miguel de Cervantes, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Josep Pla, and the birth of Maurice Druon, Manuel Mejía Vallejo and Halldór Laxness. There is however, some discrepancy with those dates based on which of the two calendar systems were used at the time.

This year, All Africa reports that as Nigeria joined the rest of the world in celebrating the World book and copyright day, the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) said that it had arrested 371 suspected book pirates. The news of the arrests was announced by the Director General of NCC, Barrister Afam Ezekude, while he was speaking at an event to commemorate the world book day.

According to All Africa, Ezekude said in the last three years, the NCC had stepped up the tempo of its anti-piracy operations in which the commission had confiscated a total of 5.8 million assorted pirated copyright works with a street value worth over N7 billion ($4.25 billion US). Also confiscated by the commission were 18 containers of pirated copyright works at various ports, most of which contained books of both local and foreign publishers.

It appears that the NCC was celebrating two events on World Book Day. And while the report says the alleged pirates had been arrested, it does not state if any were actually "booked" on world book day for their book activities.